Gekiranger really doesn't have your typical MOTW set up. Aside from Gyuuya, most RinJyuken users stick around for an episode or to. I mean, it had been years since I watched Gekiranger when the LWW popped up last year, but I still remembered the 5 Venoms, Rasaka, Dokariya and the like.

So the 'every villain is a commander' aspect of Jungle Fury isn't because they cut out like twenty episodes?

I don't remember too much of Jungle Fury. How were the monsters handled there?

There were no monsters of the week, every week they'd introduce a new set of commanders under Daishi and battle them for about ten episodes.

Hmm. Guess that'll be the case here too. Is the conflict between them and the rangers still set up as martial arts contest between two schools or is it different? It'll be interesting to compare the differences between the two of them whenever I get to Jungle Fury on my PR Netflix-a-thon.

Nah the plot is very different from that, but I adore that show.

Kagura isn't annoying me as much so far. Her immaturity seems more like part of her character and less an obvious affectation. It also helps that she doesn't talk about herself in the third person all the damn time.

I suppose. Only a few RinRinshi didn't last past their introduction episode. Gyuuya, the Eel, that one Rinshi that stole one of the beetle armors to pretend to be more badass, and I think that's all of them.

That third person shit, man I thought it was a translation error at first.

No, it's part of the burriko stereotype. Apparently it's something little kids do (likely because of the crazy amount of first person pronouns and accompanying rules for them that Japan has) and the whole idea of Natsuki and characters like her is to act as childish as possible in order to appear adorable.

It's adorable in the same way a stubbed toe is.

Right time to skip three episodes and Brave In! to episode 33 /braces for the incoming butthurt. It seems all I missed in these three episodes was Aigaron falling for Candi and a new battery, two things this episode doesn't stop going on about - so basically I missed nothing.

About the only disappointment in the skip is that it appears that Aigaron now seems to accept that he "goes dark" does that mean that this is the full explanation we're going to get for this or..?

The rest of the episode was good but frustrating. Ian is a fantastic character when an episode lets him step out of Daigo's shadow, and it was especially fun given that it was a paired focus episode with Utchy. But even though I actually liked this episode loads, I still can't help but wonder why the two most developed characters outside of Daigo get yet another focus episode while Souji and Amy continue to be entirely one note, with Nossan fairing only a little better.

Unless I skipped them during my best of watch, I actually don't think any Kyoryuger other than Daigo, Ian and Utchy have had more than a single episode focusing on them, that is really bad. Half the core team are completely undeveloped and the half way point is getting further and further in the distance behind me.

It had some really good visuals though, as far as monsters of the week go, the Deboss Monsters have to be some of the most consistently good. It's a shame I can't say the same for the Commanders.

That new battery combo though, for all of its build up, was surprisingly lame.

Considering Aigaron and his mood shift/going dark thing, it does get explained, don't worry.

Amy does get focus episodes, but they don't do anything for her character other than establish "She's rich" or "She's still rich," so you're not missing much. Souji...*Sighs* Souji is the poster boy of missed opportunity.

It's such a shame because KyoryuGreen is a badass, but Souji is just non existent.

At least Aigaron gets explained.

There's so much they could do with Souji, but Daigo was too busy sucking up all the screen time. It's unfortunate...
Nossan also gets episodes, but they don't do much, either (They're still endearing, since they tend to be about him balancing being a ranger and his family, but he doesn't really grow as a character from them).

The most frustrating thing about Nossan for me, is that whereas Ian has his personal motivations for revenge, Nossan has personal motivations to protect. Obviously all the Rangers are fighting for something, but it's usually general and idealistic, we have actual faces for Nossan in his family.

But despite this, there is never a sense of the weight of this on Nossan or in his decision making. When it isn't an episode entirely focused on him, all this personal weight he carries is non existent, he may as well be another character.

Souji does have a bit of surge of character episodes later on.
Amy, just, what.

That's because he has to sacrifice his screen time to the One Above All, Daigo the Great. Hell, Daigo usually gets a large chunk of importance in Nossan episodes, too.

All this talk about character episodes has me thinking, though. How many episodes did Utsusemimaru get? I can only think of 3, and one was a filler (Him and the little boy)...

It isn't so much character focus with Utchy and more so that he has a clearly defined character in the first place. The problem with characters like Amy and Souji especially is not only is there rarely focus on them, there isn't really anything to them in the first place.

While I can't deny Amy idles in the "She's rich" establishment of character, she does have the moral support moments. Like when she talks with Utchy in episode 11 and learns that his apparent jerkiness was just a facade. At least with little moments like these she can actually be more than rich and spout random english words. As for Souji...yeah. KyoryuGreen's suit actor has more character that he does which is just sad.

Still though, the worst show for that, was Goseiger. Agri was an okay character, but in a show with such a strong first and second in command he felt pretty shallow in comparison but MAN GoseiBlack's suit actor was just so cool!

It wasn't just the unconventional fighting style - that helped - but it was just all the cool little ticks, mannerisms and just general personality that GoseiBlack imbued that rarely seemed present with Agri himself.

I think it's one of the first times in toku history where I've enjoyed the suit actor more than the character themselves, I mean I've enjoyed suits and not the character in them but with Agri especially I loved GoseiBlack the suit ACTOR so much I pretty much couldn't ever see them and Agri as the same person.

Goseiger had incredible action though, both GoseiBlue, Black and Red were all just so cool. It was so stylish and badass, I find it hard to believe it doesn't have more fans on that reason alone.

Boukenger 5.

"It's a smile only you can do."

Was kinda excited for a character focused episode on the pink Ranger, after Amy got shafted so bad in my other show I'm currently watching. But it turned out to be dumb and contrived. The show even points this out, so what...is that meant to make it okay? It doesn't.

The action was a mixed bag as well as Shovel was kinda lame despite being well designed and implemented.

More Megaranger!

I'm finally getting to the point where there's a major shift in status quo! No, it's not Mega Silver, but the addition of a new villain general, meaning that the rangers are either gonna have to get their asses handed to them, or the villains will have a shift in MO. Either way, I'm excited~

Don't worry, Sakura is definitely a full-fledged character compared to Amy.

Brave 34.

Hey look, more attempts to streamline continuity while only making it more muddled and convoluted! I was going to actually write my questions down so we could discuss them, but by the fifth minute I had so many I realised it would be hopeless of me to write this critique any differently than how you are reading it now.

As ever though the action was pretty great, Daigo's Dad is a badass and I wanna soak in every scene I can with Grey. Bragigas was surprisingly well realised, I loved seeing the camera pan out to capture the carnage of the battles while this mega robot raises up behind them. Plus that Fisherman Deboss, despite being so goofy, was actually pretty badass.

Not sure how to feel about Bragigas' humanoid form, though. The weapon was ridiculous and not in a fun way, and I dunno something about the design and the colours, it wasn't horrible but there was just something I couldn't stand that I can't put my finger on. Oh also the fact that it's primarily piloted by Daigo, fucks sake.

Plus, why was it so small? It looked like it was the same size as Fisherman, despite dwarfing them before. Then again the scale in sentai has always been a fucking nightmare, going from standing shoulder to shoulder next to real buildings to suddenly towering over them when they become miniatures.

Also lol at the final scene where they forgot to move Chaos mouth despite being in close up and allegedly speaking. This episode was dumb in so many ways, and none of them good.

Brave 34.

Hey look, more attempts to streamline continuity while only making it more muddled and convoluted! I was going to actually write my questions down so we could discuss them, but by the fifth minute I had so many I realised it would be hopeless of me to write this critique any differently than how you are reading it now.

As ever though the action was pretty great, Daigo's Dad is a badass and I wanna soak in every scene I can with Grey. Bragigas was surprisingly well realised, I loved seeing the camera pan out to capture the carnage of the battles while this mega robot raises up behind them. Plus that Fisherman Deboss, despite being so goofy, was actually pretty badass.

Not sure how to feel about Bragigas' humanoid form, though. The weapon was ridiculous and not in a fun way, and I dunno something about the design and the colours, it wasn't horrible but there was just something I couldn't stand that I can't put my finger on. Oh also the fact that it's primarily piloted by Daigo, fucks sake.

Plus, why was it so small? It looked like it was the same size as Fisherman, despite dwarfing them before. Then again the scale in sentai has always been a fucking nightmare, going from standing shoulder to shoulder next to real buildings to suddenly towering over them when they become miniatures.

Also lol at the final scene where they forgot to move Chaos mouth despite being in close up and allegedly speaking. This episode was dumb in so many ways, and none of them good.

Boukenger 6.

http://i.imgur.com/crIwmGL.png

No one talks like a human being in this show. I dunno whether that is just the show or just the way TVN translates it. It is a shame too, because it's really nice seeing their friendships blossom, as this team grows closer and more functioning. It certainly handles the teamwork aspect better than Kyoryuger, and I like how it isn't some assumed thing from the start.

More Megaranger!

Status quo shift has been achieved with the new villain commander, Gir...Girel? Guiral? Damn, I just finished watching it and I already forgot his name :lol
Oh well. If In Space was any indicator, he lasts for a good while, so I'll have time to learn it :p

And what a complete bastard he is, using children as human shields. It's crazy, and sends Mega Red into a BSoD. It was a really good story, and seeing Kenta learn to overcome it was great.
However, the biggest downfall was that it did it all in one episode. It really should have taken 2 episodes for this. It would've made the character arc a lot stronger so it would be literally resolved in a day. Kenta says he's too afraid to fight, but we never see it. He sulks about his mistake for, like, 7 minutes, and it's resolved before the first commercial eyecatch. It's way too rushed.

That aside, it's great. Red got the Battle Riser (Though, if I recall, the Battlizer's armor was American only. Darn...), and was actually interesting to watch since he wasn't being a complete moron for once. Also, seeing a Red ranger who makes mistakes and has those mistakes actually affect him is rather refreshing after coming off of Marvelous and Daigo.
Up next, a new mecha! The Delta Mega!

By the by, my years of watching Power Rangers has made it hard to not call the mecha "Zords" and "Megazords." I have to make a conscious effort to type "Mecha" or else I'd be using PR terminology :lol

It's TVN. It seems like they decided for the 2007 series (this and Den-O) that they would try to be as literal in their subs as possible, to the point of actually trying to use the same sentence structure even though Japanese grammar works completely differently from English.

Boukenger's 2006 bro.

My favourite was at the start when Black talks about being scared of the curse, before Red immediately bursts into this long rant along the lines of 'SO YOU ACKNOWLEDGE YOU CANNOT BEAT ME! HAH! YOU THINK YOU CAN SURPASS ME!' in what, from the way it reads, sounds awfully close to those dubbed martial arts films I watched as a kid, I could almost see his mouth moving to words he isn't actually saying.

Not only does the dialogue not flow at all, it sounds totally unnatural. And that is before they start dumping exposition about Pharaoh's curses while the actors try their hardest to not sound like they're reading from Wikipedia.

It was, wasn't it? I always forget there wasn't a show between Magiranger and Boukenger.

Giving it some thought, I dunno whether to drop Boukenger. I like seeing the team slowly come together, but right now I'm basically just watching it for the action which is exactly what I'm doing with Kyoryuger, I feel like I should back it up with something with substance.

Kyoryuger 35.

This episode tried way too hard, and fell really flat. Everyone on the rooftop seemed really self aware that this was all really dumb and gave really awkward performances.

Meanwhile I try to work out why a robo so huge that it transforms into a 'Gigant' humanoid form is...the same size as all the mecha.

Oh also, Super Kyoryuzin or whatever it's called is awful.

Kyoryuger 36.

The only thing that let this episode down from being absolutely perfect, is KyoryuSilver. Firstly as expressed previous, I find the Kyoryuger suits really dull, but then that was coupled with an awful transformation and what looked like a very sweaty suit actor. Ew.

Gekiranger 7-9

These episodes sorta surprised me with how they shook up the formula. I thought they were gonna fight the Five Deadly Venoms one by one, episode by episode, bu nope! Scorpion and Toad falling in love and eaming up to figh the Gekirangers came out of left field.

I was about to groan at the inclusion of Miki's daughter, since at first she seemed like another toku spoiled rat kid, bu by eight she's already mellowed out considerably and is actually pretty helpful, which is a nice surprise.

Cobra seemed to think Rio was too weak to lead the Rinshi. I guess Rio only has complete control of the non-general Rinshi. The others were too afraid to stand up to Rio or Mele, but Cobra thought he could do a beter job a proving the might of their dark martial arts.

Mele turned out to be a Rinshi, surprisingly, the first Rio awoke. Wonder why she's got a human form then? Episode nine was pretty much about her. In her case, it feels more than just a villain getting character development, she feels like a protagonist in her own right.

Jan sensed something else about her that didn't classify her as a 'zowazowa'. Was it her drive to train herself to get stronger or just that she wasn't as ad as the other Rinshi.

I also like how the Gekirangers even had to train to get their canon operating at full power, for over he course of two episodes too instead learning it all in one! But is Jan really gonna call out pork stew every time they fire, lol?

Can't help you on this one, I only made it to episode 8. Not that I disliked the show, I just can't watch the exceptionally poor TVN subs.

Yay~
You're seeing the bits and pieces of what makes Geki my favorite as it all comes together as the story progresses! :D

And no, Jan doesn't scream it out every time. It doesn't immediately drop, but he does grow out of it eventually :lol

And for more Megaranger, Delta Mega is awesome. Gatling hands are awesome. Not much beyond that, though. *Shrugs*

Kyoryuger 39. Yes, I skipped two episodes.

Man, I may not be one hundred percent sold on the Kyoryuger suits, but I can't deny the all out awesome of having ten Rangers all fighting together at the same time against a small army. This episode was just pure EPICNESS.

Aside from that, the visors were especially reflective this episode, they have a lot of camera crew working on this show it turns out. The singing was corny as fuck, and nothing is more skin crawling than when toku tries to force something as cute but D was so badass it almost made me sad I skipped the film. Almost.

Gekiranger is not your typical Super Sentai. It will follow the trends, but it does its own twists on them. It also likes to shake up the shake up the status quo every 3 or 4 episodes.

Aw man, don't drop it :/.

There it is! The Locke catchphrase :lol.